Left field

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Ireland’s rugby board advertised for the newly established role of high performance scrum coach on Tuesday, just days after the national team’s scrummaging skills were shambolically exposed in a 30-9 Six Nations defeat by England.

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Northern hemisphere hopes are raised at the start of every November but by the end of the month it has usually become crystal clear that the Tri-Nations’ stranglehold on world rugby remains as tight as ever.

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A rugby writer, with tongue only half in cheek, once said it was possible to gauge an Englishman’s entire outlook on life by ascertaining whether he was a Stuart Barnes or a Rob Andrew fan in the years between 1985 and 1993.

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There is something about the Welsh National Anthem – The Land of My Fathers – that makes the hairs of my back – and there are many of them – stand on end.

It always has done. Even as a sports-mad child growing up in the 1970s I eagerly anticipated settling down on the sofa to hear it before the likes of JPR Williams and Phil Bennett strutted their stuff on muddy rain-soaked pitches.

I’m not Welsh but to hear it bellowed out by over 70,000 passionate and emotional Welshmen, usually accompanying opera singer Katherine Jenkins, before a rugby international at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff is one of the great experiences in sport.

Saturday was no exception. As a Reuters journalist I have been to the cathedral of Welsh rugby many times and as usual, my spine tingled as the Morriston Orpheus Choir, along with the Regimental Band of the Royal Welsh, led the singing.